


Castiel Has Been Saved

by Loser_Angel_666



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Love Confessions, M/M, Requited Love, Temporary Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-17
Updated: 2020-11-17
Packaged: 2021-03-09 18:54:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,869
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27600998
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Loser_Angel_666/pseuds/Loser_Angel_666
Summary: “There’s a ripping pain, down the center of Cas’ being. Like his muscles are being ripped from their bones, and his skin is being boiled and he realizes distantly that he’s screaming. He doesn’t stop moving though. He can hardly see through the bright light and the pain, but he shoves Dean forward, through the portal, and with one last ripping hiss of pain, he steps through as well."Cas is stuck in the empty with an entity that is forcing him to live through Dean Winchesters rejection over and over. A rejection that might not even be real.
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester
Comments: 2
Kudos: 67





	Castiel Has Been Saved

**Author's Note:**

> I'm losing my fucking marbles please help

Dean stands before him. His eyes hopeful, hands reaching out. He looks alive and well. He looks like Dean. He looks like Dean before Cas had pulled him out of hell. Untainted. 

“Cas!” He sounds like Dean too.

Cas reaches out to him, cautious this time. Finally learning to be cautious. Dean puts his hand on Castiel's cheek, and he lets out a breath of relief. Dean has saved him. 

Castiel has been saved.

But then Dean's smile twists into a sneer. His eyes glint with malice. He shoves Cas back and he howls with laughter and when he looks at Cas, thrown onto the ground, he mocks him.

“You didn’t really think I was Dean did you?” It shakes its head.

“No. No no no.”

“Oh.. Castiel.” It frowns sarcastically. “How many times until you realize your lover boy isn’t coming to get you. He doesn’t care. You are useless to him!” It reaches down and grabs Cas by the hair, shoving him into a memory.

***

Cas is low on powers. He’s made another mistake. He’s let down Dean. Again. And again. And again. He’s nothing to the Winchester’s if he isn’t an Angel. He can’t save them. Can’t fix them. Can’t help them.

“Stop!” Cas yells out the empty laughs at him.

Dean is standing there before him. Eyes sad and hopeful. He looks well. He looks less broken than Cas had remembered him. He smiles at Cas, mouth agape. It looks too real. It’s too real.

“Cas?”

Cas can’t do this again. It’s the same every time. 

Every

Single

Time.

“Dean?”

“Cas!” Dean runs to him. “I thought I’d lost you,” He says, wrapping his arms around Cas’ shoulders. But Cas doesn’t melt into it. He doesn’t smile. He doesn’t hug back. He shoves Dean away. 

“Why are you doing this?” Cas yells. Dean’s heartbroken face falls back into the empty’s sneer.

“This is all your fault.” It says. Cas shakes his head. “It’s your fault I’m awake. EVERYONE IS AWAKE. I wanted quiet.”

“I didn’t do this.”

“Your son did.” 

“I’m sorry…” Cas says sarcastically. The empty grabs him by the face. Another memory. Reliving another regret. 

***

Dean is standing before him. Cas doesn’t flinch. He looks more like Dean now than he did when the empty started. His eyes look a little more tired. Cas hugs him anyway, just to feel Deans arms around him again. He hugs him even though he knows what happens next.

And for that short moment, it feels like it really is Dean whose arms are wrapped around him. For a brief moment, Castiel has been saved. Again. It never lasts. 

“I don’t love you.” It says and Cas only breaths in. “You’re not worth saving.”

“Then why are you here?” 

Dean, the empty, shoves Cas over, hand on chest, and sends him into another regret.

He’s in so much pain. He’s bleeding. He’s … he’s fine. Crowley wants to make a deal with him. 

Cas lies.

He lies to Dean too many times and he leaves him there alone. And in the end it only made things worse. 

The empty cries out viciously and Cas feels a tug in his brain. The memory starts to go hazy.

NO!” It yells and the memory is ripped away.

Dean is standing before him. Looking ragged and tired. The heartbroken, hopeful surprise on his face makes Cas want to believe it’s real.

“Cas?” Dean’s voice cracks.

“No.” Cas shakes his head. “Don’t do this.”

“Do what? Cas, I’m here to take you home,”

“No you’re not.” Cas says. 

Dean reaches out for him, and when Cas flinches away, the betrayal and confusion on his face is so real it stabs through Cas’ heart. Just a hug. Just believe it for one small moment. Cas tells himself. The brief relief is worth the pain of deception at the hands of the empty.

“Cas, please,” Dean says, “I don’t know how long we have before it’s coming back, Jack can’t hold open the rift too long, it’ll upset the balance.”

“Dean?”

“Yeah, it’s me.” He says, and Cas tentatively steps forward. 

Dean doesn’t hesitate to grab his hand, pulling him through the empty. For a place that is supposedly so loud, all Cas can hear is silence. They walk for a few minutes, and Cas is still waiting for the empty to turn around and send him into another memory. But Dean keeps walking, angel blade in one hand, Cas’ hand in the other. And once a small sliver of light is visible in the distance, Dean holds tighter onto Cas and they start to run.

“No!” there are cold hands grabbing at Cas, wrapping around his chest, his throat. Dean looks horrified. Cas understands. 

There’s a ripping pain, down the center of Cas’ being. Like his muscles are being ripped from their bones, and his skin is being boiled and he realizes distantly that he’s screaming. He doesn’t stop moving though. He can hardly see through the bright light and the pain, but he shoves Dean forward, through the portal, and with one last ripping hiss of pain, he steps through as well. 

***

The first thing Cas sees is the floor. Then the blood that’s pooling on it. It occurs to him that this must be his own blood. He looks up, and sees Dean by his side immediately, eyes frantic. Sam is on his other side, holding him up under the armpit.

“Jack, heal him!” Dean is saying desperately.

“I- I don’t know if I can,” Jack says, but he tries anyway. Cas tries to say he’s fine, but his voice is too rough and his throat feels like sandpaper.

“What happened?” Sam sounds worried. That can’t be good.

“We just… we were almost there, and then…” Dean is trying to help Cas sit up. “I don’t know. I don’t know.”

“I’m fine,” Cas mumbles, but blood comes out of his mouth when he says it, kind of contradicting his point.

“You’re fine,” Dean tells him anyway. “You’re gonna be fine.”

There’s still an aching and stinging pain that stretches down Cas’ back. It’s burning through his shoulder blades. And he feels like he might pass out. 

“That’s all you can do? You're GOD!” Cas distantly thinks he should ask for clarification on that, but the fading of his vision seems more urgent

“It’s nearly impossible to heal wounds inflicted by the empty, I’m trying,” Jack says, and he sounds just as scared and desperate as Dean does.

“Cas?” 

“Hm?” the voice is fuzzy.

“Come on, stay awake, Angel.” 

“Mmhm,” Cas leans into Dean’s grip.

*** 

When the fuzziness fades, and the echoing of everyone's voices becomes silent, Cas wakes up in a dimly lit room. The bedside lamp is on and in the chair, Dean is reading a book. Cas doesn’t know if he’s ever seen him read an actual book for fun. Cas turns his head, wincing at the soreness in his shoulders, and Dean looks up.

“How are you feeling?” He asks.

“Like I got run over by a train.”

“So not good?”

“Better than being the empty.” Cas says and maneuvers himself to sit up.

“I’m sorry.” Dean whispers. Cas shakes his head.

“You don’t need to be sorry, Dean.”

“...You’re human, Cas.”

“Oh.” And Cas rolls his shoulders as much as he can stand too. The hint of pain down his shoulders in two thin strips suddenly make sense. He’s human. “Being human is preferable to a life without Dean Winchester.” Cas says, then he looks away, realizing how unplatonic his admission sounded. “It's also preferable to death,”

Dean shakes his head sadly, like it’s his fault. He blames himself. “Do you regret it?” he asks.

“Regret what?”

“Sacrificing yourself for me. It’s my fault you’re human now, that can’t be easy on you.”

“I would do it all over again.” Cas says. The look on Dean's face, utter heartbreak and guilt, makes him think maybe he’s crossed a line. Saying things like that were less obvious before he had told Dean. Would they make him uncomfortable knowing how Cas felt? 

“I wish you wouldn’t.” Dean says, looking at his hands. “I wish you wouldn’t sacrifice yourself. Never again okay.”

“It was to save you,”

“Well, from now on, I’m not living without you, so it’ll be pointless anyway,” Dean shrugs and looks at Cas like it’s a challenge.

“I won’t be able to assist you on hunts.”

“I don’t care about that.” Dean almost sounds offended. “Cas, we can train you up, no problem, and I don’t care if you come on hunts or not, I’m glad you’re back.”

“Oh. Okay. Thanks.”

“Whether you’re human or an Angel, I don’t give a goddamn fuck, as long as you’re here.”

“I guess that’s good then.” Cas says and Dean just stares at him hard. 

They sit there quietly for a few minutes. If Cas was an angel he might have been able to look into Dean’s emotions, just a little, and figure out what he’s thinking. But now Cas is back to the beginning, when he was first trying to decipher what emotions meant. Maybe Dean is difficult to read. Or maybe Cas is just stumped.

Dean is staring at Cas with a gaze that could compete with the angel’s. But they’ve always been like that, haven’t they. Staring too hard and too long. Cas wonders if Dean feels the same. If he’s judging him. If he’ll just ignore the confession. Cas doesn’t expect reciprocation.

“What you said.” Dean says. Cas thought they would go back to normal. Pretending it wasn’t there. Nothing had changed. “What you said. Before you…” Dean looks away, “Cas. You can’t just… not like that. You can’t- and then just die on me. Man, I couldn’t- I-”

“Dean…”

“And I know you’re going to let me get away with not talking about it, because you’re stupid like that, but Sammy literally threatened to kick me out if we didn’t talk, and I don’t think I would be able to look at you knowing I never said it back.”

“You don’t have to-”

“You’re an asshole for dying, Cas, and even more of an asshole for leaving me with something like that. And I don’t deserve whatever feelings you have, if your human self even still has them… But, uh, I love you too. So don’t die, please.”

“My feelings haven’t changed now that I’m human, Dean, that’s not how it works. I was already too close to humanity to count as a real angel anyway.”

“You’re still an angel in my book,”

“Thank you, Dean.” Cas says, and before the words are even fully out of his mouth, Dean is leaning over and kissing him.

They watch TV together until they fall asleep, and when Sam walks by to see if Cas is doing any better, or if Dean finally fell asleep in the chair next to his bed, he sees them both asleep in the bed instead. Fingers entwined, heads resting on each other, Dean’ s arm around Cas’ shoulders. Sam quietly takes the switcher from the bedside table and switches off the tv for them before leaving them quietly to rest.

**Author's Note:**

> I failed physics last quarter, and it’s one am, but I just finished my homework for the weekend (yes it’s monday night) and I wanted to finish this 
> 
> I'm not sure how I feel, I didn't edit this at all. But I think I have an idea for a second chapter, so comment if you want an epilogue/sequel/update thing :)
> 
> thanks for reading, have a lovely day/night <3


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